Breakdown of Radnik će izgorjeti od stresa.
radnik
worker
htjeti
to want (intent, will)
od
from
stres
stress
Questions & Answers about Radnik će izgorjeti od stresa.
How does the prefix iz- change the verb in izgorjeti?
The prefix iz- adds the sense of exhaustion or absolute completion to the root verb gorjeti (to burn). While gorjeti is just the continuous action of burning, izgorjeti means "to burn out" (like a person's mental energy) or "to burn down completely" (like a building).
Since burning out is a process, why use the perfective verb izgorjeti here instead of an imperfective one?
Even though stress builds up over time, izgorjeti is used here because the future tense focuses on the final result or endpoint of that process (total exhaustion). If you wanted to describe the ongoing process of a worker currently burning out, you would use the imperfective counterpart, izgarati.
Why do we use od stresa (from stress) rather than zbog stresa (because of stress)?
Both are grammatically fine, but od + genitive is idiomatically used for direct physical or emotional causes that overwhelm a person (similar to umrijeti od gladi, to die of hunger). Od stresa frames the stress as the direct, tangible source of the burnout, whereas zbog stresa sounds slightly more detached, like "due to stress."
Just a quick refresher: why is it će izgorjeti instead of izgorjet će?